A DURBAR. 



The choicest place, of course, is that moist spot at the back 

 of the house, under the pomegranate-trees, where the bath- 

 water runs out into the ground. The fowls have taken pos- 

 session of that, and are fitting themselves into little hollows 

 scraped in the cool damp earth. The next best place is the 

 broad verandah, with the elephant-creeper oppressing the 

 trellis. Here long before noon the birds begin to come to- 

 gether. Up among the rafters first I generally detect a 

 social lark* sitting solitary and speechless ; then down 

 among the roots of the creeper, hopping idly about, turning 

 over a dead leaf here and there, and talking to one another 

 in querulous falsettos, come a dozen dingy-brown " rat- 

 birds,"t feeble folk, which keep in flocks, because they have 

 not back-bone enough to do anything singly. They are just 

 miniatures of the " Seven Brothers," only there are no dif- 

 ferences of opinion among them. A little later on, two or 

 three well-breakfasted mynas drop in and assume comfort- 

 abledigestiveattitudes. The myna is the most proper of birds, 

 respectable as Littimer himself. In his sober, snuff-brown 

 suit and yellow beak, he is neither foppish nor slovenly, and 



* Calandrella brachydactyla. 

 f The striated bush-babbler ( Chatlarrhaa caudata)^ 



